I Read What?!

So, you may be wondering then, in this reviewer's humble opinion: does Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey withstand the test of time?

This answer is probably not surprising to anyone who's read my reviews but no...and yes.

Dragonflight is ultimately a frustrating book because there are aspects of it that are genuinely great. And then there are aspects of it that are utterly abysmal. It would be so easy though for someone to pare away the messy and awful parts and make it into something amazing for modern readers.

I would kill for a Shadowhunters style adaptation that took these characters, setting, and plot and really started to dig into all of the problematic and fucked up aspects of the Weyr society.

Because they are a really fucked up society. They're horrible. They're parasites who leeched off the Lords for four hundred years. They take children and young adults, seemingly without any need for consent of them, their parents, or their Holds. Their culture is based around disgusting rape rituals to the point where that's how they decide their fucking leadership.

It's abhorrent.

The gender politics of this book are awful. Women are chattel. They're supposedly elevated to a high position, as Weyrwoman, but that essentially just means they're there to be available to the man whose dragon nails the Queen. Supposedly, they have some kind of domestic leadership of the Weyr, but the only time we ever see Lessa trying to do anything about that, we're told that F'lar's wing already has the food supply in hand.

Both Lessa and Mardra have a significant role in the Weyr leadership, but a lot of that seems to be because F'lar and T'ton choose to include them in their decision making. There's no indicator that they really have to. And R'gul certainly had no interest in consulting with Lessa when HE was in charge. It's not clear what exactly Kylara was supposed to be doing at Southern Weyr. We're told she was basically slacking off on her duties without clearly indicating what they actually are. Food's provided. They have everything they could want. What is she supposed to be doing again? Housework? Fuck that, the men can clean up after themselves.

The mating set up is disgusting. First, we have the women, most of whom are taken from the Holds, and it's not clear how much they're told about what will happen. Certainly Lessa had no idea. So, yay for unnecessary rape.

Then we have the implied child sexual abuse. Many of the male dragonriders are literally children. I vaguely recall, for example, that F'lar was thirteen when he Impressed Mnementh. They start flying in mating flights a YEAR after. As much as I hate F'lar, I don't want to think about the fact that he'd have taken part in these fucked up rituals as a child. No one deserves that.

And then there's the way that every woman who is mentioned as actually taking some control over her sexuality is demonized. Kylara has been lambasted with every insult under the sun, despite having, we're told, a temperament very suited to being a Weyrwoman. We're told that the Weyr has freer sexual mores, but every single male character seems to view Kylara with as much disgust as lust. And Jora, amidst her other multitude of sins, is "lecherous".

The physical abuse of Lessa, on top of everything else, is utterly unnecessary. It doesn't fit with the way F'lar and Lessa generally interact, and puts a dark stain on what is (initial mating ritual aside) a generally healthy and appealing partnership. And I suppose that would be okay, if that were the POINT. If we were supposed to understand that a relationship can be appealing in some ways and abusive in others. But the story doesn't do anything with this.

Essentially, we're not supposed to see F'lar as abusive, simply as a normally stoic man so caught up in his emotions that he can't help but shake her in fear and anger. That kind of bullshit trope may have been fine for old time romance novels, but it doesn't fly in the present day.

None of this shit holds up in the present day.

And yet...

And yet...

Lessa.

Lessa is amazing. She really is. She's strong, smart, a little ruthless. She's prickly, temperamental, and indomitable. She defies any and all expectation about what is possible, whether she's a slave or a dragonrider. She routinely does the impossible because she refuses to give up and let other people dictate what she does. She can be selfish, she can be petty, and she can be scary.

Lessa isn't just an amazing character for 1968, she's an amazing character today. I would be happy to see a hundred Lessas.

And in the sense that this book is Lessa's story: that we're watching Lessa's rise and triumph as she repeatedly succeeds in the face of men who tell her no, then yes, there is a thread of something good and powerful in there.

Shame about everything else in the novel.

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Part 4: Final Parts | Table of Contents |